Purpose

To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net

Beijing introduces new rules to curb car use on bad pollution days

A woman wearing a protective mask rides on a scooter along a overpass
with heavy car traffic below during a very polluted day in Beijing on
Oct. 6, 2013.

BEIJING – With last winter’s “Airpocalypse” still fresh in Beijing
officials’ minds, politicians have introduced new guidelines for dealing
with so-called “bad-air” days. The scheme calls for an alternative
driving day schedule for cars with even and odd numbered license plates
in the event of heavy smog.

The new rules, reported late Thursday by Chinese state news agency Xinhua,
calls for the driving schedule to be enforced on days when Beijing
issues a “red alert” under a four-tiered pollution warning system. A red
alert will be issued when the air quality index (AQI) is expected to be
over 300 over a three-day period.

On those days, even and odd numbered license plates will swap driving
days and the capital will increase public transportation frequency and
hours of service for residents. According to the Environmental
Protection Bureau, such a move would force an estimated 2 million more
people onto the city’s already packed buses and subway.

In
addition, the new system would also require city officials to share the
burden, forcing 30 percent of the city’s fleet of vehicles to stay off
the roads during bad-air days.
The steps are not without
precedent, albeit for very different circumstances. Throughout the 2008
Summer Olympics in Beijing, all of the same steps were put into place to
limit traffic congestion on the city’s famously car-choked streets.

Since
the Olympics, a scaled down version of these traffic restrictions have
remained in place, but they were meant to alleviate traffic, not curb
air pollution, which has only gotten worse since the Olympic showcase
five years ago.
Since 2008, Beijing has claimed som
e success in
dealing with air pollution, noting that particulate matter 10
(particulate 10 micrometers in size) readings across the city have
steadily gone down. However, PM2.5, a far more dangerous particulate
that originates from car exhaust has skyrocketed as more cars find their
way onto Beijing’s streets.

A study by the Chinese
Academy of Sciences found that nearly a quarter of PM2.5 particulate
found in the city originated from car exhaust.

The next biggest
emitter, industry and manufacturing, was also addressed in the new
standards. In addition to tighter road restrictions on heavy air
pollution days, the new measures call upon industrial plants and
constructions sites to suspend or limit work to control particulate in
the air. Even outdoor barbeques will be suspended in the event of an
orange alert.

Children’s safety is also accounted for in the new
guidelines. On red alert days all kindergartens, primary and high
schools will also suspend classes until air quality improves.

Again, many of these guidelines are not new and in fact were put in place after a particularly brutal stretch of poor air quality last January. For much of that month, the AQI soared and the city was cast in a grey smoggy pall.

At one point, the AQI surpassed 900, pushing pollution numbers 40-45 times above recommended safety levels and forcing the government to finally acknowledge the severity of its air problem
The
new guidelines will help manage the symptoms of air pollution, but
greater steps will be needed to deal with the roots of Beijing’s smog
problem, namely runaway car sales, expansion of heavy industries like
steel production, relentless construction that kicks up dust across the
capital and an addiction to cheap coal power.

China’s ruling Communist Party has shown a willingness to tackle many of these issues as of late, offering up nearly $1 billion dollars in incentives
to local governments to clean up their act, either through the
suspension of construction projects or heavy industry or transitioning
from coal-burning power plants to more expensive natural gas plants.